About the Author

Charles M. Schulz was born November 25, 1922, in Minneapolis. His
destiny was foreshadowed when an uncle gave him, at the age of two
days, the nickname Sparky (after the racehorse Spark Plug in the
newspaper strip Barney Google).In his senior year in high school,
his mother noticed an ad in a local newspaper for a correspondence
school, Federal Schools (later called Art Instruction Schools).
Schulz passed the talent test, completed the course, and began
trying, unsuccessfully, to sell gag cartoons to magazines. (His
first published drawing was of his dog, Spike, and appeared in a
1937 Ripley's Believe It or Not! installment.) Between 1948 and
1950, he succeeded in selling 17 cartoons to the Saturday Evening
Post--as well as, to the local St. Paul Pioneer Press, a weekly
comic feature called Li'l Folks. It was run in the women's section
and paid $10 a week. After writing and drawing the feature for two
years, Schulz asked for a better location in the paper or for daily
exposure, as well as a raise. When he was turned down on all three
counts, he quit.He started submitting strips to the newspaper
syndicates. In the spring of 1950, he received a letter from the
United Feature Syndicate, announcing their interest in his
submission, Li'l Folks. Schulz boarded a train in June for New York
City; more interested in doing a strip than a panel, he also
brought along the first installments of what would become
Peanuts--and that was what sold. (The title, which Schulz loathed
to his dying day, was imposed by the syndicate.) The first Peanuts
daily appeared October 2, 1950; the first Sunday, January 6,
1952.Diagnosed with cancer, Schulz retired from Peanuts at the end
of 1999. He died on February 13, 2000, the day before Valentine's
Day--and the day before his last strip was published--having
completed 17,897 daily and Sunday strips, each and every one fully
written, drawn, and lettered entirely by his own hand--an unmatched
achievement in comics.